Leaders of Lake City Church and Mad City Church have scheduled a meeting for Wednesday June 2, 2010, to discuss the possibility of merging the two congregations.

Information about the possible merger was presented to the two congregations yesterday morning. Lake City Church Lead Pastor John Ruck delivered the information during a congregational town hall meeting with questions and answers at 9:30am, between two morning services. Mad City Church Senior Pastor Tom Flaherty delivered the information as part of his sermon during the 9:30am service.

One Church Begets Another, and Another

Lake City Church is one of Madison's older evangelical congregations, with roots in a 1927 prayer meeting on Winnebago Street, and was known as Madison Gospel Tabernacle for many years. Mad City Church began in 1996 by a small group of former Lake City Church attendees who started meeting in a living room out of a desire for a less formal worship style.

Mad City Church, reflecting national trends in changing worship styles and a strong preaching ministry from pastor Shane Holden, grew steadily. The congregation changed venues several times and has been meeting at LaFollette High School for most of the past ten years.

Between 2003 and 2007 attendance at Mad City Church's two Sunday morning services averaged around 1,200. Lake City Church's Sunday morning services also used to draw 1500-1600 each weekend. However, Lake City went through a difficult leadership transition starting about a decade ago and attendance dropped. (Over the past several decades Lake City Church has also birthed congregations in a number of other area communities, including Brodhead, Sun Prairie, Stoughton and Mt. Horeb.)

In 2007 Shane Holden resigned from Mad City to join the Madison Police Department. But a year later, after deciding against continuing as a police office, he started another eastside congregation, Damascus Road. Current adult Sunday attendance at Lake City and Mad City churches is estimated at around 500-600 each, with Damascus Road at about half that number. Earlier this month Shane Holden left Damascus Road Church to take a position at a church in Onalaska.

Merger Is Not Assured

In their Sunday morning comments pastors Ruck and Flaherty both stressed that a merger is not necessarily going to result from next week's meeting (which will include staff members as well as members of deacon/elder boards, numbering approximately 30 men and women in all). However they felt that it was important to inform their congregations at this time.

In his sermon pastor Flaherty offered his congregation some background, describing several prophecies over a period of years about a union of the two congregations. His sermon was based on I Thessalonians 5:19-22, which calls for careful discernment of prophecies. He said such a union would be a strong testimony to a society which has become cynical about church politics.

He also admitted that meshing Mad City Church's "come as you are" style with Lake City Church's missional focus won't necessarily come easily. "What if God wants two large churches to embrace the pain of coming together for the sake of their witness to the city?" he asked.

An Invitation from God

Flaherty asked his congregation to consider what purposes God might have in encouraging such a union. "Prophecy is not a mandate, it is an invitation," he said. "It's God's privilege to do what He wants to do and our privilege to obey Him."

Flaherty invited feedback from the congregation and asked for prayer and fasting for the next two Tuesdays.

(Full Disclosure: The author has been a member of Lake City Church and Mad City Church at different times.)